


Dutiful

by Pandora



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 20:05:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9088288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandora/pseuds/Pandora
Summary: A Naboo handmaiden is fascinated by one of the Emperor's crimson guards.





	

The first time I know I saw him, I was walking through the hallway near the Emperor’s office on one of the Senator’s errands. There was only a dried leaf, dead leaf whisper from the circulator fan moving in the velvetsoft, empty air—and the one aide I had passed had continued on away from me in a soft tiptoed scurry, with a mouse droid darting along after him. It does not do (as I was told during the blur of my first hours of service here) to disturb the Emperor. I was walking along past a tall coffin-thin picture window, and the sky looming behind it, when he came around a corner. He turned his head, and the dark visor on his helmet, towards me.

Oh, I couldn’t doubt--then or afterwards--that he had seen me. But I wasn’t a threat he needed to manage, and I wasn’t of any other interest. His bright red cloak swished behind him in a sighed out whisper, and he was already walking on past me. Then he was gone.

Then I exhaled a long whipped out breath. My heartbeat was a twitching, rat clawed frenzy, and I had to pause in front of the window view for a minute. But at the same moment, I realized my mouth had slid out into a smirking coy, amused smile. I can’t know what he saw when he looked at me, but I hoped that had been it.

After that first nervous-shocked minute, I was interested. I can admit to it now. You see, it was more than unusual to see one of the Emperor’s personal crimson guards about—I had never heard, at least personally, of one single incidence. When I had seen them before, the few times I had stood guard over the Senator during the private meetings he _insisted_ on, I had only just dared to look over in their direction while the Emperor spoke in his burnt-dark voice:

The two guards stationed at the doors might have been statues, in their wounded-red, nightmare-red cloaks, the rest of the room reflected inside their blinded-black visors as they stared straight ahead. I should have recognized that look, but I didn’t.

He may have been one of them, on any of those occasions, but I couldn’t know. No one knew, with objective certainty, one thing about the crimson guards. But there had to be something to know, even if it was only the words of their names—everything has some sort of name.

And then: I shook my thoughts back into order, and continued on my way. The glass bubble of the lift was empty when it opened for me. While it floated up towards the floor where the Corellian delegation still had its offices, I stared ahead at my reflection floating inside the wall. That day, I was wearing a lilacpink gown with a recently fashionable narrow skirt, the one that Amaria had chosen for the Senator’s subcommittee luncheon meeting. My face looked like a pale lily-doll mask I was wearing. I don’t know that I shall ever be used to that.

But I had enough time to think, and I could not help but wonder about that crimson guard, and the errand he must have been out on. _Oh you won’t be able to believe_ (I thought, as I planned what I would tell Amaria and Lissa later on) _who I saw today_.

And: when the guard had walked off, and his cloak had breathed out slightly behind him, it was just enough so I had seen his surprisingly dainty feet.

\---

Perhaps I should add this here: my mother had sent me a red velvet dress for my birthday, my twentieth one, the month before, though it had arrived through the embassy customs several days late. When I had taken it out of the box, and the snowwhispered layers of papersilk, and shaken the curtain of the skirt open, it had smelled like warm sunlight, and it had shivered with electric-glitter, like a tuskcat’s fur, from the recycled dry air in the apartment. My mother had had her personal seamstress make it; I recognized her _fine hand_ , and (of course) she would have still remembered my measurements exactly.

Lissa watched on from the doorway of my private room, and made the appropriate impressed ooohed sighs. “You must try that out,” she said—and of course, only a moment before her com-phone snarled awake, and Captain Mercado’s voice broke through.

It was the sort of dress I had worn during my former life when I was playing around at parties and art studies on Theed, when I was well-known as her daughter, when I knew how to get people to see me. I had three different rosered, bloodred frocks then. Oh yes—no one who knew me would have ever thought I would fade into the shadow-role of a handmaiden, and I never could explain it through in a way that they understood.

(That was the girl the seamstress, a sway-backed woman with little bird teeth, had in mind when she accepted my mother’s request with her usual chirped _Oh yes, muhlady_.)

I haven’t worn this new dress in public even once. But later on, when the Senator had sent us downstairs to our apartment, I had tried it on inside my closed room, and examined the results in the door of the mirror propped up in the corner. I listened to its swishing whisper as I walked back and forth. After only several minutes of that, I climbed out of it again.

\---

That night, Amaria accompanied the Senator to the Empress Surelia theatre, while Lissa and I remained behind at the apartments. Captain Mercado had finally accepted a night off, but that still didn’t leave us with much to do. I felt my blaster nudge against the side of my hip as I made the rounds through the silent hallways, and then back to the Senator’s bedroom. My blaster. It is one of the sleek new Royal models, with mirrorsilver skin, though mine is smudged dull with fingerprints. It’s turned out that I am a good shot—though I was just as surprised as the others at that first target practice. I had never so much as seen a blaster before that. After all, we are still supposed to be _pacifists_.

I can’t say that it is a skill that I have much pride in, though I do the appreciate the fact that I possess it. But I should admit that I have only ever shot at the hovering metal target droids—and never at a person, a living being made from meat and bone. And I don’t much need to repeat what the Senator said when she saw the mess I had made of the one droid.

“So,” Lissa’s voice said from the wardrobe. The Senator’s dresses rustled together with a windshaken hiss as she sorted through them. “What do you think his purpose was?”

“I couldn’t possibly say,” I said. I looked down at my (useless, drooping, bored) hands, and my pallid fingernails. I had them painted with a sleek, invisible, clear polish. The Senator has her nails done the same way, and Amaria insists that we follow in her example.

“Oh, I’m aware that you wouldn’t _know_.” Lissa’s footsteps came back out into the room, and I didn’t have to look back to know her expression. “But I asked what you _thought_.”

I shrugged: I could still feel the nervously-warm giggling flush as I first told them, and I didn’t want to think too long on what it meant. “Let’s just hope it was some mundane matter.”

Lissa watched the dress she was holding in a fainted heap over her arms as she said: “Perhaps. But I don’t think the Emperor sends his personal guards around on minor errands. I know that I’ve never seen one of them around like that.”

“It is possible that he was only off duty,” I said—and yes, I should admit that until that moment, when I spoke, I hadn’t so much as thought of that. That might indicate something about my intelligence, except I don’t think many other people would have either.

“ _Oh_ , I see.” Then Lissa give a crystal-pitched giggle behind the fan of her hand. It sounded, as always, like an artificial music box noise, but I don’t suppose I shall ever know what her natural (and no doubt, improper and _lacking in subtlety_ ) laugh is.

And then: “That would mean they can’t be droids after all.”

That is only one of the few rumors circulating amongst the junior political aides, the ones who can talk in loud, free, floating voices—though most of them are of the opinion that the guards are actually clones. I have never much believed either thing: actually, even though I knew what the Senator’s views would be, I still believed that one whispershushed remark I overheard at the Embassy, during my first month in service, that they are from Naboo. It makes the most sense. After all, we’re taught the importance of planetary loyalty from the first hour of childhood.

But I only shrugged again, and: “I don’t suppose that we’ll ever know.”

Then Lissa moved on to another topic, though I don’t remember most of what we discussed next. While she stayed behind, to work out the morning floral arrangement for the Senator’s office, I excused myself and retreated to our apartment for the next few hours. Really, there wasn’t much else left to say about the crimson guard. I didn’t think that I would ever see him again.

\---

When I did, it was several weeks later, and the Senator was in attendance at an afternoon salon at the famed hanging gardens at the Alderaanian embassy. It was another bland and tasteful warm day in the senate district, and the crowd was there for the sake of _art_ —and that included, I had learned to notice, several Imperial hardliners someone had known to invite. The Senator was hunched down in an earnestly whispered conversation with Cassia Ormond, and Amaria watched on with a blank look only I knew as the resentful hovering glare it was. They didn’t notice when I walked away, when I became only another person wandering the paths.

It was that easy: and I couldn’t quite believe it as I walked down the promenade path, my mouth arranged in a slightly arched smile. And I continued on past the main gathering, and through the flung out shadows of a herd of ornamental trees with fragile boned trunks and a thick mess of lace-fan leaves, a species we don’t have on Naboo.

I don’t even know that they are Alderaanian in origin. There were several discreet display card-screens set out glowing with facts, but I still don’t know what their name is.

The embassy office floors were empty, and the wide corridors were lit with sunwhite light from the opened windows. I have to admit to raising a bemused eyebrow at that. A wind swished inside, and I could hear the buzzed snarl of the chorus of socializing voices above.

Then: an Imperial guard appeared with a smartly paced swish of his rubydark red cloak. He came walking forward, towards me, out from the shadows where the corridor turned. It was too late to avoid him—and I could only step aside and wait, my back clenched into a locked wooden door, for him to continue on past me.

Of course, I didn’t think he could be the same guard I had seen before. Of course, I was more concerned with what his presence meant--that the _Emperor_ had to be on the premises.

His long sleek helmet was pointed at me, and I thought I could see my drowned reflection inside the blinded black visor. My mouth was still frozen, from years of memorized habit, in that polite gesture of a smile. Then he spoke:

“You seem to have wandered away from your post, handmaiden.” His voice was blurred with a static hiss from his speakers, but it was still his natural deepwater voice. I blinked back at him. “But then, you’ve done that before.”

“And how exactly would you know that,” I said. Later, when I looked back at the ghost-fading memory of that moment, I didn’t know how I had found the nerve to speak.

“This isn’t the first time our paths have crossed,” he said. “And I should not have to tell you what your duties are. Your place is with Senator Naberrie.”

Oh, of course, he would have to mention her: Senator Pooja Naberrie, the niece of no one other than _Amidala_. She would have been still discussing the same earnest trivialities with Lady Ormand up at the salon. It seems shallow to refer to her as beautiful—but it also seems necessary. It is the reason she is known, to a few leftover 2000 senators, as “a shining reminder of democracy.” I hardly need to write down the fact that I don’t look at all like her.

Amaria is supposed to (since—though this is another secret--she is the _assigned decoy_ ), but even she has only a faded resemblance. The Senator is perfect: with perfect—and splendidly done up—hair, and perfect doll-sized hands, and perfect eyes, and perfect tits.

“She doesn’t need me right now,” I said.

“That is not what I meant,” he said. “There has been talk that Senator Naberrie is not as loyal in private as she is in public. She might very well have need of you. It is your duty to know that, and I should not have to remind you.”

“And what does that matter to you,” I said. My voice took on a slightly whined squeak, but I felt a rush of emotion that I couldn’t think of how to name. It was resentment. No, it was anger—I was moved to a sullen, pathetic anger I knew I didn’t deserve to feel.

He lowered his helmet in a nod, and his voice was less severe when he spoke again: “It doesn’t. And now, I must excuse myself.” He walked on, and I suppose it is to my credit that I did not turn my head to watch him leave.

I was still standing there when Amaria arrived. Since there was no one else around to see her, she had turned her usual whispered walk into a hard stride, and she was looking for me. She didn’t ask me what I had been doing—which was just as well, as I don’t know what I would have thought of to tell her. I left with her, and we returned to our places behind the Senator.

\---

And yes: I would see him again after that. But I do think I have already implied that would happen. It was one of the last hours of the night when I sneaked out into the apartments courtyard, and the darkness-- lit only by the rushed blur of speeder lights out in the sky--gave it a soft dreamed feeling. I wore a cloak the color of the dark air. He was waiting for me in front of a moonpale marble statue, of a man locked into the armor of another, long dead, Empire, that I knew only from my vague memories of an hour of a college history class. The guard might have been a statue himself, in his well-carved armor and the crushing wave of his cape.

Until: he reached up and took off his helmet, and he was finally revealed as human. He had short static-rumpled dark hair, and the dim light made his dark eyes look truly black. He lifted his crooked eyebrows at me. I only watched back.

 _Elara_ , he said—and he knew my name, the name that has become a secret, but he learned it through the most ordinary of ways. I told him.

When he told me his name (and he would, since I had given him my own secret) I recognized it. There were two boys at my primary school who were named Jeren. It means—the teacher us during the first class of the one term I took on the old Naboo language— _peace_.

The air thrashed up into a breeze, the way it does sometimes during the night, and then I heard the blaster-fire burst of someone laughing in the nearby darkness. He turned in that direction only long enough to dismiss it. I pulled the sheet of my cloak in closer. Underneath it, I wore the sleek thin watersilk peach dress I had changed into in a hurry, in private.

He moved first. He took a step towards me, into the space between us, and I didn’t know how to imagine the next minute: _Elara. Tell me what your duty is_.

**Author's Note:**

> The name Jeren being the Naboo word for "peace" comes from a post on fialleril's tumblr.


End file.
